General

There were enough exciting food shops, restaurants, bakeries, cafes, pop-ups, street kitchens, trucks and diners to make us wonder quite why we’d bought return tickets home. Experimental, exciting, foodie heaven! Every day presented us with another marvel-in-the-mouthful: pastries to get up early and queue for, tempura lemon skin with salt cod croquettes to remember forever, scotch eggs to defy all sense of just-how-good-can-a-scotch-really-be (answer: VERY), magical kale salad with poached egg and garlic crumbs. A few highlights, below, from an incredibly happy, snowy, blessed, fun and fruitful American adventure. . .

Sofra, One Belmont Street, Cambridge MA, 021338 t. 617.661.3161 Ana Sortun is a gem, her cookery book, SPICE, is a treasure and her bakery, Sofra, is the biggest box of delights of them all. Trusting that flavour can come primarily from the artful use of spices and herbs (rather than the fat others often rely on through cream and butter), Ana’s Middle Eastern-inspired cakes and pastries are delicate, delicious and very special. A breakfast here of olive oil granola with orange labne and local honey, semolina pancakes with seasonal jam and a cheeky tahini donut to round off the belly. An inspiration to all of us who think we know how to shake things up at the breakfast table.

Flour bakery and cafe, 190 Mass. Avenue, Cambridge MA, 02139 t. 617.225.2525 ‘Make life sweeter. . . eat dessert first!’ is the bakery’s motto and so said both of us as we walked into what felt like the inner santum of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. Move along Mister Wonka as we crown Joanne Chang, chef and owner of FLOUR, the queen of all sweet treats. Homemade oreos and pop-tarts, donuts sparkling with sugar, cookies the size of your hand, chocolate-stuffed croissants, sticky buns, lemon cake, chocolate chip and coconut macaroons, this place was a seriously dangerous discovery.

The Butcher Shop, 552 Tremont Street, Boston Mass. 02118 t. 617.423.4800 A tribute to the old world European boucheries, inspired by chef Barbara Lynch’s travels around France and Italy, far too many hours can be whittled away in this this neighbourhood wine bar and full service butchers shop. With homemade sausages on display, along with slabs of foie gras and exquisite marbled cuts of local beef, this is not one for the strictly vegetarian. I lost a fair few brownie points tweeting out my foie gras-induced delight but, between you, me and the fattened duck, I’d order it all over again and struggle hard not to proclaim. I don’t spread it on my morning toast but, honestly, once in a while?!: divine. . . For a more politically correct menu choice, my beet salad with blue cheese, almonds and citrus vinaigrette was also worth quacking loudly about.

The Gallows, 1395 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02118 t. 617.425.0200 This is a restaurant which knows how to have fun, be confident, surprise, entertain, delight and wow. Gin cured salmon, Guiness fish and chips, scrambled eggs with fries, gravy, cheese curds and bacon, the menu is as loud and decadent as the restaurant’s atmosphere is vibrant. Karl’s absolute-dish-of-the-trip was his gallows’ scotch egg: soft cooked egg wrapped in crispy pork sausage.

Belly Bar, One Kendall Square, Cambridge MA 02139 t. 617.494.0968 Good wine, strong cheese and cured meats: apparently simple ingredients executed to perfection in a very chilled environment. Following the rules of the classic wine bar – small sharing plates of food to accompany your tipple of choice – the comforting formula is shaken up with some real surprises and delights from the homemade charcuterie which arrives on a weathered wooden chopping board. I can’t remember eating better Jamon Iberico and the veal terrine with hints of anise was also very special.

Neptune, 63 Salem Street, Boston MA 02113 t. 617.742.3474 For the freshest local seafood and an impeccable raw bar, Neptune is where it’s at. It’s a tiny joint so the atmosphere is always lively. First class oysters, lobster sandwiches or our favourite dish – the buttermilk ‘johnny cake’ with honey butter, smoked trout tartare and Californian sturgeon caviar all find their perfect companion in an equally focussed and impeccable wine list. These guys know what they are doing and are doing it very well.

Mei Mei If I could have brought one Boston kitchen back to London it would be this on-the-move food truck. Run by the Li siblings – Andy, Margaret and Irene – they serve up a constantly-changing menu of what they describe as ‘locally sourced Chinese-American food made with love’. With confident riffs on Chinese staples and in-your-face flavour combinations – pork liver paté cone topped with mustard whipped cream, pickle brine sprinkles and a pickled cranberry – this is some of the most creatively delicious food being served in Boston at the moment. My ‘magical kale salad’ with poached egg, feta and garlic did indeed have something magical about it. Street food shouldn’t taste quite this good. . .

On busy evening services, it’s become something of a dedicated habit of mine to stop & observe Donata at work for a few seconds- a kind of express meditation. The muted speed of her knife, her effortless cool, spot-on balance of flavours and textures are inspiring, calming and downright fun to watch. At the risk of gushing, she injects such delicate precision into her work. Be sure to stay hello to her next time you’re in.

18/02: The beauty of what we do working in a restaurant is meeting new people all the time and the familiarity that grows with our guests as they dine with us again and again.

The same can be said for the wines on our menu. We are currently trying some delicious and exciting new prospects to add to the tried and tested favourites.Cut to resident winos Albi & Gal hard at work drinking wine and shaking heads upward/downwards for yes and left/right for no. So, as heard on the proverbial grape vine, we may or may not have the best rose in the world soon and an exciting new bio-dynamic Austrian gruner. Breath bated, wine glass polished, ready to taste.

31/1: The NOPI meringue is much like a little sister to the Ottolenghi meringue. However, unlike the latter - perched at the shop window as it idly watches the world go by- ours is dainty, rosy, and well on its way to possibly the happiest place on earth: the strawberry and pomegranate mess.It’s one of Yotam’s moments of simple genius and we love it. Katrina, our new pastry chef, definitely agrees.

The Ottolenghi croissant is something rather rare:
how can so much flour and butter taste like fresh spring air?
Leaf-light layers with a crust light and crisper
“what is the secret?” we often hear our lovely customers whisper
the butter, the kneading, the hand which bakes,
what is the magic ingredient which makes
our puff-pastry parcels the best in town?
(though we say so ourselves, they’ve become quite renowned).
The list of ingredients is no mystery in the least:
flour, butter, milk, sugar, salt and egg and yeast,
the process of their making follows traditions known and old:
knead the dough, let it rise and deflate before it’s rolled;
more rising, chilling, butter and rolling and, as one soon learns,
the all-important layer-producing repeated folds and turns,
repeat again, add more butter, fold and say your prayers
and hope that the resulting croissant has the requisite 36 layers!
The magic’s worked, they’re left to freeze in the bakery overnight
before fresh cooking in our shops, to our customer’s delight.
Served with coffee, spread with jam,
taken home to fill with ham. . .
But the real secret, the one that lies behind this finest treat
is the person who our customers don’t often get to meet
the one whose kneading, the dough’s friend and clock:
our very own and very special Mister Irek Krok:
here from Poland for the past six years,
he’s 36 layers above his baking peers;
for all that one can know the croissant-making drill
it’s years of practise that results in the skill
to make and bake and know the dough,
when it’s rising too quickly and needs to slow
to mix and measure, roll and fold
to feel when the butter’s too hot or cold
to make batch after batch and get it so right
that heaven is thought of in every bite
batons and patterns on tray after tray
we’d like to take a moment to proudly say
that it’s Irek and all those behind the scenes
who make the Ottolenghi food the stuff of dreams. . .

10/1: Since our first paper table cloth was laid at NOPI two years ago, we’ve seen everything doodled upon then, from love hearts to Christmas trees to apparently-homicidal crocodiles. This little gem particularly made us smile during an otherwise-energetic Saturday lunch service. So we thought we’d share it with the world. To all the bright and beautiful days indeed and to all the worlds envisaged over a table for two.

3/1: At NOPI, we’ll use any excuse to combine two of our loves: the pomegranate and our taste for a strong tipple. Queue the cocktail competition! Clementine juice, sumac and gingseng spirit were just a few of the flavours experimented with, but the winner: a pomegranate and Szechuan cracker-of-a-cocktail with Appleton rum! Good work Lukasz… .